


It's Simple

by batrincos



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, a little bit of kissing, everything is just fine and they love each other, i have no experience in tagging, shikamaru thinks about naruto A LOT, they've been friends for ages and somebody finally decides to do something about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24653692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batrincos/pseuds/batrincos
Summary: Shikamaru has never asked to be the main character of some gay romantic comedy but here we are.
Relationships: Nara Shikamaru/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 11
Kudos: 217





	It's Simple

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Всё просто](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096777) by [batrincos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batrincos/pseuds/batrincos)



> hi!  
> english is not my first language but i really hope i'm not so bad at it
> 
> i love shikamaru/naruto with my whole heart so i just wanted to write something about them  
> enjoy!
> 
> я сделяль перевод! https://ficbook.net/readfic/9588626

Shikamaru knows something about patience. 

He wouldn’t say he spent a half of his life in deep and dark pining for someone, but he is definitely familiar with patience and its worth. It’s never been this feeling, when you constantly want something and you either finally get it or go off in a way that nobody likes. The patience simply is part of him, just like trouble — no, even Trouble, — is part of Naruto.

He was the one to go off, but Shikamaru never minded.

One may say that it’s not easy to be in the shadow of your friend, but Shikamaru always felt like he belongs to this shadow — not in a bad way, when you are jealous of your friend’s success, but in a good one, as if no one but you can find a place to hide from the sun, and you are the only lucky one who discovered the shelter.

It is his favorite thing to think of: he was always unintentionally hiding behind his sun’s back, and it never bothered him in any way.

Naruto is the one who turns people’s lives upside down, and he never asks a permission to do so. He usually just breaks into one’s life and changes it completely. His friends become more confident, they reach out to his power, to all the warmth he shares with them, and when they call him naïve, or too hopeful, or even dumb, deep down they believe him, or at least want to believe him.

Sometimes Shikamaru has to remind himself it wasn’t always like this — when he first met Naruto at school, the boy didn’t have any friends. He was usually alone, and even though he tried to draw everybody’s attention by acting silly and loud, he never succeeded to get along with anyone. 

Well, despite the fact that Shikamaru was the laziest kid ever since the day one, he also was the smartest, which meant he actually liked to puzzle out things. It seemed to him that puzzling out Naruto could be of interest — Naruto, unlike others, has never been predictable.

Shikamaru wasn’t that kind of guy who desired to save every poor kid in class from bullies, he didn’t even care about justice or other mythical shit until one day he decided to get closer to Naruto, who was sitting on a swing — all alone after school. Chouji left early, skipping the last class, and Shikamaru didn’t want to go home, so he slowly walked to Naruto and, trying to ignore the surprised and just a little bit scared look on his face, leaned on a bar of a swing.

“Hey,” Shikamaru said.

That was pretty much it — Shikamaru for the first time in his life had no idea what to say next.

“Hey?” Naruto looked up at him, eyebrows frowned, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

He said one word and everything became troublesome. Shikamaru sighed — he should’ve thought about some strategy to break the ice between them, and now he looked like an idiot. Though Shikamaru didn’t know exactly what to say, he did have one question for Naruto, that had been bothering him for quite a long time.

Shikamaru sat on the other swing on Naruto’s right.

“Why don’t you fight them back?” he asked. “I mean, I know you fight with Sasuke sometimes, but why don’t you _really_ fight them back?”

It was true: Naruto had never had an answer for anybody’s offensive words. He swallowed them, he could start to scream about injustice, but he had never offended anybody in return. Naruto could be a little naïve, but he certainly wasn’t blind — and it wasn’t difficult to find his offenders’ sensitive spots. Sasuke had troubles with his older brother. Sakura was never confident, when it came to her appearance. Ino was easy to mock because she became irritated quickly. Naruto could use it, but he never did — and he never complained to teachers about all his classmates hurting him.

What seemed even more surprising was that Naruto helped them sometimes. He protected Sakura in front of other girls, saying that she is the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He didn’t tell the teacher that it was Sasuke who gave him a bruise on his cheekbone. He didn’t say anything when he saw Ino cheating on the exam.

He was too kind with them, and Shikamaru wondered why. Naruto didn’t look like someone patient.

“Dunno. Dad always says that they are unhappy and that I need to have com…” he frowned again.

“Compassion?”

“Yeah. He has a similar ponytail by the way, my dad. I kinda like it.”

It was a good attempt to distract him but Shikamaru didn’t buy it.

“So, you don’t fight them because you think they suffer enough already?”

“Probably.”

“But don’t you suffer enough?”

“I don’t suffer at all,” Naruto shrugged once again. “They will understand one day. I’m gonna be great, y’know? I’m gonna be cool.”

Shikamaru hesitated for a moment.

“You’re already kinda cool.”

Naruto’s eyes lit up like his father’s zippo and at that very moment Shikamaru knew that he got himself in trouble.

It wasn’t like they’ve immediately become best friends and spent a lot of time together, but sometimes Shikamaru and Chouji joined Naruto at lunch and Shikamaru even helped him out with homework once or twice before the semester had ended.

Shikamaru still doesn’t know when exactly they’ve become friends — when he became not just a boy who didn’t hate Naruto, but a boy who would literally kill for him; silently — yes, but still.

What he knows is that when he started to sit with Naruto sometimes, to talk to him in front of everybody, the bullying had stopped. Shikamaru wasn’t the most respected guy in class (his family name wasn’t Uchiha after all) but him talking to Naruto showed the other kids that Naruto was nice and never meant any harm to anybody, even though he was brought up in the orphanage before his stepfathers adopted him when he was seven.

Naruto has a lot of love in him, Shikamaru still isn’t sure where it came from considering his harsh childhood and early school years. Sometimes Naruto is so kind it becomes irritating and troublesome at the same time, but Shikamaru is ready to support him and his craziest ideas whenever needed. 

Naruto is the one who is slightly in love with everybody around him, people amaze him easily, he listens attentively to any merely interesting shit from anybody, he asks questions, he talks a lot to those who are too shy to talk to him first. Shikamaru doesn’t have a heart as big as Naruto’s, there are only several places in his: for his parents, for Chouji and Ino — and for Naruto.

So, he patiently waits.

For someone who is so good at strategy Shikamaru is extremely dumb when it comes to relationship. Shikamaru has no fucking clue how to build something more than friendship. It’s not like he’s never dated anybody, he actually had a girlfriend once — and she was gorgeous and stuff but they both didn’t know what they’d wanted from life and decided to break up before everything would become too troublesome to figure things out. Though Shikamaru still admires Temari, who is constantly texting him from her new home and asks him to come and meet her girlfriend.

Shikamaru has never asked to be the main character of some gay romantic comedy but here we are.

Thinking about all this stuff, Shikamaru sighs and closes his eyes — the sun sat a few minutes ago, and Naruto isn’t here to keep him up for any reason; he is slightly drunk, but it’s enough to fall asleep at the wide balcony in Akmimchi’s country house. There are several beanbags out here and Shikamaru sinks in one of them and doesn’t feel like moving for the rest of the evening.

They came here to celebrate Chouji’s birthday, and Shikamaru slipped off the dinner — maybe he is not so good at friendship as he likes to think. He listens to loud voices and laughter through the open windows on the first floor and the sounds slowly lull him to sleep.

Until he hears the balcony door open.

He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know who has the audacity to interrupt his sleep.

“Hey,” he says to Naruto, who settles in the beanbag on his left.

Their knees touch. 

Shikamaru is too relaxed to move away, also he has no reason to — Naruto’s warmth is familiar and doesn’t distract him from his extremely important thinking process.

“Hey,” Naruto answers, and his voice is a little husky because of all the talking and alcohol.

They’ve never really had to talk in presence of each other: Shikamaru seems to be the only person in the whole fucking world who Naruto trusts with his silence. Shikamaru would like to take his hand and sit here in silence for a while, but he can’t do so — he is not sure how Naruto would react. Their friendship is too comfortable to fuck everything up.

So, Shikamaru decides to do what he usually does the best. He doesn’t move.

Naruto stays silent for some minutes and finally clears his throat. Shikamaru’s ears are itching to hear what he has to say.

“I sometimes feel like I don’t thank you enough,” Naruto says.

And Shikamaru feels like he’s some old machine and his details are screeching while he tries to process the information.

“What do you mean?” he asks carefully and slowly opens his eyes.

“Dunno,” Naruto looks down. “You’ve always been there for me and I act like I take it for granted.”

“Do you?” Shikamaru raises his eyebrow.

“No.”

“Good.”

“No, but-”

“Naruto,” Shikamaru waits for Naruto’s look to find his eyes. “I’ve never done it because I need some sort of gratitude or whatever. I just-”

Perfect. You just what, Shikamaru? You just like your friend so much it sometimes physically hurts? You just want to protect his beautiful soul from the outer world and this is one of the main reasons why you’ve chosen the same university as he did? You just think that Naruto deserves the best — and you are not the best?

Shikamaru can’t take his eyes off Naruto; it’s simply impossible, even though he knows that looking at the sun might hurt.

“You mean a lot to me,” he finally says.

“I know, Shikamaru. I just want to make sure you know that it’s mutual.”

Shikamaru continues to stare at his eyes and nods slowly, even though he is not sure they are talking about the same things.

“What do you mean you know?” Shikamaru asks.

“I mean you’re pretty good at non-verbal communication.”

Exposed.

“Don’t look at me like that. Sakura told me what it is,” Naruto says.

Shikamaru nods one more time. He suddenly wonders what else Sakura told Naruto. She is, in fact, very smart, and is good at noticing shit. As well as Ino, and the fact that they’re best friends doesn’t make the situation easier.

“So-”

“So,” Naruto covers Shikamaru’s hand with his own, and Shikamaru feels like none of this is real, “it’s probably the time to say I like you a lot. In a way that I’ve never liked anybody else.”

Okay, that’s too much for one evening. Shikamaru came here to rest, and now he is anything but relaxed. 

“If this is some stupid bet-”

“It’s not, I swear,” Naruto squeezes his hand a little tighter. “I mean what I’m saying.”

Shikamaru needs a second to realize what is happening. He stares at Naruto’s eyes and doesn’t understand how he could not see it coming. Is he blind? Is he dumb?

Is it Shikamaru who is naïve?

He keeps looking at Naruto’s eyes; he needs a moment to realize shit. Naruto — the boy who was into Sakura for ages, the boy who never noticed Hinata’s or Uchiha’s gazes, the boy who isn’t used to be loved but is used to love everybody himself — right now is telling Shikamaru that he likes him back? For no visible reasons? As simple as it could be?

It’s been ages they’ve met each other and somehow Naruto still is unpredictable.

Naruto laughs softly.

It’s not like Shikamaru isn’t happy — he is quite sure he’s never been happier — but he doesn’t understand. Was it always so simple with Naruto?

Shikamaru is patient — it’s true — but he was planning some kind of fighting for Naruto. He knew it was possible for them to end up together, but he thought it wouldn’t be so easy.

Not that being friends with Naruto is easy — sometimes it’s hell, but Shikamaru suddenly loves when it’s hot.

“Are you going to say something or have I crashed your system?” Naruto asks.

Shikamaru just moves closer and touches Naruto’s lips with his own — he hasn’t planned it, but it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He doesn’t have to say anything. He _is_ good at non-verbal communication. 

Naruto leans closer, and Shikamaru places his hand on Naruto’s shoulder, grabbing his stupid orange hoodie. It’s a warm and calm evening, and Naruto is warm and calm in his hands. 

“So, how long have you been waiting?” Naruto asks softly and smiles in his proud yet shy manner.

“It’s not like I was waiting in pain, you know.”

“Was it one of your ingenious plans?”

“I swear it wasn’t. I don’t think I’d had the guts to tell you I… I’m into you. Every time I’ve tried, I chickened out eventually.”

“And I feel like an idiot. It took me thirteen years to understand. I’ve never been smart…”

“I’ve never been brave.”

“That’s a lie.”

“You lied too,” Shikamaru shrugs. “Can we just… go on?”

“Yes, please,” Naruto murmurs before he kisses Shikamaru again.

When they move away from each other Naruto lies on his beanbag and stretches his legs. He looks at the clear night sky and smiles a little bit.

“It doesn’t have to be complicated; I promise,” Naruto says.

He is right — there’s nothing to change completely in their relationship, they spend most of the time together anyway. But now the cuddling will be involved, Shikamaru assumes. And kissing — suddenly Shikamaru is into this stuff. He doesn’t mind.

“I know.”

“Sakura will kill me,” Naruto says quietly when they sneak in one of the empty rooms in the Akimichi house. “I promised her I would be back soon.”

“You wanna go back?”

“Nope.”

“Then don’t. It was you who said it shouldn’t be complicated.”

Naruto smiles and kisses him gently as soon as the door closes. 

Shikamaru knows everything about patience, but most importantly he knows everything about Naruto — and he’s excited to learn even more today, tomorrow, next week, next month; for the first time in his life he’s not going to be the laziest learner.

Enormous amounts of patience still needed when it comes to relationship with Naruto but, hell, Shikamaru is good at it. And Naruto is good to him.

This is, in fact, not complicated at all.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for mistakes <3  
> be safe


End file.
